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WARSHIPS 




COMPILED BY WORKERS OF THE 
WRITERS’ PROGRAM OF THE WORK 
PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION IN THE 
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 


—JUNIOR PRESS BOOKS— 

ALB E RT%WH ITMAN 
& 4co 

CHICAGO 1940 






PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION 
State-wide Sponsors of the 
Pennsylvania Writers’ Project 

FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY 
John M. Carmody, Administrator 

WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION 
F. C. Harrington, Commissioner 
Florence Kerr, Assistant Commissioner 
Philip Mathews, State Administrator 



RECEIVED 


JUN 141940 

COPYRIGHT OFFICE 


Co-sponsored and copyrighted, 1940, by Division of Extension Education 
Board of Public Education, Philadelphia 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 


PREFACE 


Warships is the ninth in the Children’s Sci¬ 
ence Series. It was prepared by the Philadel¬ 
phia Unit of the Pennsylvania Writers’ Project, 
sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of 
Public Instruction. 

This booklet was written by Mark Bartman. 
It was edited by Katharine Britton of the State 
office staff. 

Acknowledgment is made to Charles Gay, 
Associate Director in charge of Marine Trans¬ 
portation, Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, for 
acting as consultant to assure accuracy of the 
text and illustrations. We are indebted also to 
Rear Admiral J. D. MacNair for his reading and 
approval of the manuscript. 

Color illustrations for jacket and book are the 
work of David Cain. Other illustrations are 
the work of Mary Procopio, Charles Rossner, 
Russell Worman, and David Cain. 

Conrad C. Lesley 
Acting State Supervisor 



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WARSHIPS 


The first ships were never made for 
fighting. They were made to carry people 
here and there over the water. But it 
was not long before men found out that 
boats could also be used in war. 

Although we do not know for certain, 
we can guess how the people of long ago 
came to use their ships for fighting. 
We know that in those days men carried 
arms wherever they went. When they 
took goods overland to trade, or even 
when they just walked in the forest, 
they needed protection. There might be 
thieves or enemies waiting behind rocks 
or trees to attack them. 


6 CHILDREN’S SCIENCE SERIES 

Now when they began to build ships, 
they could trade by water. Suppose a 
ship crossed a river or a lake, loaded 
with goods. There might be pirates or 
men of some enemy tribe waiting in 
hiding to seize the ship or its crew. 

Sailors learned to carry arms for pro¬ 
tection, just as they did when they walked 
on land. And so, instead of the pirates 
capturing the crew and the ship, it some¬ 
times happened that the crew captured 
the pirates. 

But the ships that bore arms were not 
yet ships of war. They were ordinary 
fishing boats, or ships of trade. They 
were round and tubby, so that they could 
carry a lot of goods. 

Much later, slim, fast ships were built 
for fighting. To fight well a ship had 
to be able to attack quickly and get away 
quickly. Its crew had to be able to do 
more than beat off pirates. They had 
to catch enemy ships and conquer them. 


WARSHIPS 7 

EGYPTIANS AND PHOENICIANS 

The earliest warships which we know 
about were made by the Egyptians. The 
Egyptians were building wooden fighting 
ships almost five thousand years ago. 

Egyptian warships seem harmless 
when we think of the great steel battle¬ 
ships of today. They were large row¬ 
boats with the front and back bent high 
above the water. The front is the bow, 
and the back is the stern. 

Each ship carried one sail. The sail 
was used only when the wind was blowing 
in the direction the ship was to travel. 
For people did not yet know how to sail 
against the wind. 

These were the best fighting ships the 
Egyptians built. But the Phoenicians, 
who lived in a country not far away, 
improved on the Egyptian ships. The 
Phoenicians became the greatest seniors 
of their time. 

At first the Phoenician galleys had one 


8 


CHILDREN'S SCIENCE SERIES 



THE PHOENICIAN BIREMES COULD MOVE FASTER THAN ANY 
BOAT HAD BEFORE. 


row of oars on each side, like Egyptian 
ships. They had one sail, set on an 
upright pole, which we call the mast. 

But soon the Phoenicians got an idea 
that made their galleys much more 
powerful. They put two rows of oars on 









WARSHIPS 9 

each side of the ship! This new boat 
was a bireme. 

The bireme could travel faster than 
any large boat had moved before. More 
men were needed to row it, but there 
were plenty of men for that. For the 
oarsmen were slaves or prisoners of war, 
or criminals! 

Their speed made the biremes safer 
from pirates and other enemies. But 
they did not have to depend on speed 
alone. Some biremes had sharp beaks 
on the front, or bow. This beak on the 
bow was placed near the waterline, so it 
could be used to smash other ships. 

A Phoenician galley would catch up 
to an enemy ship. Maybe it would move 
to one side a little — and then crash! 
The beak of that galley would ram right 
into the enemy ship, making a gaping 
hole in its side. With water rushing in, 
the enemy ship would lurch, keel over 
and become useless. 


10 CHILDREN’S SCIENCE SERIES 


THE GREEKS AND ROMANS 
Meanwhile, other people began to build 
better wooden ships. The Greeks and 
Romans built fighting galleys with three, 
four, or even five rows of oars. 

Greek galleys were much larger than 
those of the Phoenicians. They were good 
for defending the coast and carrying 
fighting men. But they were too clumsy 
to go far with safety. They carried one 
sail, or sometimes two. But when the 
men expected heavy fighting, they left 
the sail at home and depended on their 
oars. At night they pulled the ship up 
on the shore, and slept till daylight. 

The Greeks too put rams on their 
ships. But they used one thing that was 
new in water fighting. They had learned 
to throw fire. Throwing fire really 
meant throwing balls of burning pitch. 

The Greek galleys would catch up to 
the enemy ship and try to drive its crew 


WARSHIPS 


11 


below deck with a rain of arrows and 
javelins. Then balls of burning pitch 
would be cast onto the deck of the enemy 
ship. The dry wood and sail would break 
into flames. The ship, with its men, 
would sink into the sea in a cloud of 
smoke and flame. 

The Romans tried out the idea of three 
masts on a ship, but found that thia 
made the ship more clumsy. Then they 
tried two masts, and later decided that 
one mast was best. 

Roman ships were perhaps not much 
better than Greek ships. But the Ro¬ 
mans were good soldiers, and they knew 
many tricks in fighting. They fastened 
their shields together side by side with 
pieces of leather, and hung them around 
the outside of the ship. This was the 
first use of armor to protect ships. 

The Roman sailors learned to throw 
not only fire, but large rocks. But most 
of their fighting was not done in this 



ROMAN GALLEYS LIKE THIS ONE DROVE ALL OTHER SHIPS 
OFF THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA. 
















WARSHIPS 


13 


way. They were brave and strong men, 
and usually fought hand to hand. 

In a sea battle, they would row up to 
an enemy ship and lock the two ships 
together with big iron hooks or ropes or 
chains. Then they would leap onto the 
enemy deck. When they won, they 
would take the ship and its cargo, and 
share the prizes of war. 

After a while the Roman ships had 
sunk or driven off the Mediterranean 
Sea nearly all other ships. But their 
vessels were not sturdy enough to sail 
safely beyond the Mediterranean. A 
new kind of ship was needed for ocean 
travel, and a new way of sailing. 

THE VIKINGS 

It was the Vikings, men from the cold 
lands and rough waters of northern Eu¬ 
rope, who first made fighting ships for 
rough seas and stormy weather. These 
Vikings were great sailors and great 


14 CHILDREN’S SCIENCE SERIES 


fighters. No hardier, braver sea raiders 
has the world ever seen. 

The Viking ships were shallow and 
narrow, and were pointed at both ends. 
Bow and stern rose high like a goose’s 
neck, and often the bow had a snake or 
dragon head. One large square sail was 
set on a single mast. But the Vikings 
depended mostly on rowing, like the men 
of the Mediterranean. The ship was 
steered by a large oar at the right side. 

The crew rowed to the roared com¬ 
mands of a bearded captain. But they 
were not slaves or prisoners or criminals. 
They were free men, and they might even 
have a share in the ship. They were 
sailors and soldiers too. They hung their 
shields along the sides of the ship, like 
the Romans. When the time came to 
fight, most of them dropped their oars, 
took up their shields and weapons, and 
attacked with fury. 

The Viking ships were easier to handle 


WARSHIPS 


15 


in rough water. We know that they 
could make long voyages, too. For one 
of them carried Leif Ericson all the way 
across the Atlantic Ocean to America 
many years before Columbus was born. 
Usually, however, they were used to at¬ 
tack the coasts of Western Europe and the 
British Isles. For more than a hundred 
years the Vikings continued their raids, 
until the very sound of their name made 
other people’s hearts pound with fright. 

Later the people of the North settled 
down and began to trade. Their boats 
changed, becoming rounder and deeper. 
By that time these men had learned a 
very important thing. They knew how 
to manage a sail with great skill. Sails 
were now fixed to the masts in such a 
way that they could be swung about. 
By swinging the sails in certain ways, 
men could make the ship sail partly into 
the wind as well as with the wind. So 
they no longer needed to use oars. 



THE VIKING SHIPS WERE USED TO ATTACK THE COASTS OF WESTERN EUROPE 














WARSHIPS 


17 


When the ships of the North met ships 
from the Mediterranean, the best points 
of each were copied by the others. So 
fighting ships were improved again and 
again. 

Until this time there had not been a 
great deal of difference between ordinary 
ships and fighting ships. A ship for 
trade was wide, to give more space and 
greater safety in storms. A fighting ship 
was narrow for speed. 

But there were no warships as we 
think of warships. A country might 
build a number of ships for fighting, but 
when the war was over, the ships would 
be used for trade. 

GUNPOWDER 

Then something happened that made 
men build special ships for fighting. 
Gunpowder and cannon came into use! 

No ordinary trading ship could protect 
itself against a ship armed with cannon. 


18 CHILDREN’S SCIENCE SERIES 

A fighting ship had to be stronger now, 
to stand the cannon balls shot from enemy 
ships. It had to be large and strong 
enough to carry its own heavy cannon. 

Special warships were planned and 
built. The word Navy came to mean 
only those ships which a country built 
for fighting. 

Larger and larger ships were built, 
with more and bigger cannon. Some 
ships used to carry as many as four or 
five masts, and several rows of guns. 

By the end of the eighteenth century 
there were three different classes of war¬ 
ships, or men-of-war. The largest of 
these was the ship of the line, which had 
the same duties as our big battleships 
today. It was a great wooden ship, with 
three masts usually. And it could with¬ 
stand heavy cannon fire for quite a time, 
while its own big guns pounded away at 
the enemy. 

Black stumpy guns glared out from 


WARSHIPS 


19 


three or four decks. There were more 
guns and gunners in two small forts, 
called castles, at bow and stern. Some 
ships of the line carried more than 100 
guns. 

The ship of the line was powerful, but 
it could not sail fast or change its direc¬ 
tion quickly. For scouting, for swift 
attack, and for protection of trading ships, 
a faster ship was needed. This was a 
frigate. The frigate was smaller. It 
had only two decks and less than 50 guns. 
But it had more sail for its size, and 
could outsail ships of the line. It was 
used in the line of battle sometimes. 

The sloop of war, the smallest fighting 
ship, had only one mast and carried 18 
to 32 guns, placed on one deck. It was 
used for protection of the coasts, or for 
scouting. 

In a sea fight of those days, a captain 
tried to sail his ship so that most of its 
cannon pointed at the enemy at one 



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22 CHILDREN'S SCIENCE SERIES 

time, while most of the enemy cannon 
could not be pointed at his ship. Then 
his guns would be fired. The guns of the 
enemy would reply. Sometimes cracked 
masts with their sails would fall to the 
deck. Then the crippled ships might re¬ 
treat. 

But sometimes the fight would go on 
in the style of the early Romans. The 
ships would approach each other warily 
and iron hooks with chains would be 
thrown out to draw them together. One 
crew would swarm over upon the enemy 
deck. Swords and guns would flash. 
Fallen men would lie upon the deck or 
drown in the sea. 

THE USE OF STEAM 

These frigates and ships of the line 
finally had to go the way of other sailing 
ships. Men had found a better way to 
make ships move. Steam was the new 
power. 



THE SHIP OF THE LINE HAD THE SAME DUTIES AS OUR BIG 
BATTLESHIPS TODAY. 
































































24 CHILDREN’S SCIENCE SERIES 

Steam had been in use for ordinary 
ships a long time before it was used to 
propel warships. This was partly be¬ 
cause the older officers in charge of navies 
liked the stately sailing ships. They did 
not want to change. But of course, that 
was not the only reason. 

Another reason, and a very good one, 
was that the early steamboat was moved 
by a big wheel on each side. As these 
paddlewheels turned, they dipped into 
the water somewhat like oars. So the 
ship was called a sidewheeler. Both the 
paddlewheels of the sidewheeler, and the 
steam engine that turned it, were un¬ 
protected. One good shot — and a side¬ 
wheeler warship would be in a bad fix. 

The United States Navy tried out a 
paddlewheel warship in 1841. This ship, 
the Mississippi, didn’t look much like 
our steamers today. It had an engine, 
but also three masts with many sails. 
The Navy didn’t trust steam power alone. 


WARSHIPS 


25 


The ship had two big guns, and eight 
smaller guns. 

It was not until the invention of the 
screw propeller that steam was finally 
used successfully for warships. The 
screw propeller is a piece of wood or 
metal that turns like an electric fan. 
It is placed at the stern of a ship under 
the water. As it turns it pushes the ship 
forward. Because it is under water, the 
propeller is safer from enemy guns. The 
steam engine that turns it is also safer 
inside the ship. 

The first propeller-driven warship that 
really was successful was the Princeton. 
This ship was built for our Navy in 1843. 
It looked much like an old ship of the 
line, for masts and sails were still carried. 
It had two big guns and ten smaller 
guns. 

Now it may seem that ships like these 
were less powerful than earlier ones, 
because they carried fewer guns. But 



THE PRINCETON OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY WAS THE FIRST PROPELLER- 
DRIVEN WARSHIP THAT COULD BE CALLED A SUCCESS. 















































WARSHIPS 


27 


the guns were much larger. The big 
guns were 10-inch or 12-inch guns. That 
means they shot cannon balls 10 or 12 
inches wide. One good shot would go 
right through the side of an enemy ship, 
or would knock down the masts and sails. 

IRONCLAD WARSHIPS 

With the coming of steam, that gave 
more power, ship builders and naval men 
began to protect their ships better. Iron 
plates were put on ships to cover the 
decks, and the bodies of the ships, which 
we call hulls. A ship with hull and 
decks covered with iron was called an 
ironclad. 

The first fight between ironclads hap¬ 
pened in this country during the Civil 
War. This was the battle between the 
Monitor and the Merrimac. 

The Monitor was built by Captain John 
Ericsson for the United States Govern¬ 
ment. Its deck was so low that the 


28 CHILDREN'S SCIENCE SERIES 

waves washed over it. In the middle of 
the deck was a thing that looked like a 
huge tin can. It was nine feet high — 
as high as an ordinary room — and 20 
feet across. This was a revolving turret. 

Out of the turret stuck two 11-inch 
guns. Since the turret could be turned, 
the guns could be pointed in any 
direction. 

The deck of the ship was covered with 
iron one inch thick. The turret and the 
sides of the hull were covered with iron 
at least five inches thick! The Monitor 
carried only 58 men, fewer even than 
some of the old time Viking ships. 

People laughed and called her a "cheese 
box on a raft.” But they didn’t laugh 
long. For the Monitor took to sea as 
boldly as the wooden ships. 

And people stopped laughing alto¬ 
gether when the Monitor met the 
Merrimac. 


WARSHIPS 


29 


The Monitor was a Northern ship. 
The Merrimac belonged to the Southern 
navy. It had a strange life. For it had 
been a wooden frigate of the United 
States Navy. The South captured it and 
began to change it into an ironclad a few 
months before Ericsson started the 
Monitor. 

First, the hull of the frigate was cut 
off down to the waterline. Then it was 
built up again with wood 24 inches thick. 
The wood was covered with iron four 
inches thick. The ship had ten cannon. 
But its most powerful weapon was a big 
iron battering ram. The Merrimac 
might have been too much for the Moni¬ 
tor except for one thing. It was too 
slow and clumsy. It took thirty minutes 
to turn all the way around! 

Both ironclads were started in 1861, 
and there was a deadly race between 
North and South to finish first. In 1862 
the Merrimac appeared off the coast of 



THE BATTLE BETWEEN THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMAC PROVED THAT THE 

AGE OF WOODEN FIGHTING SHIPS WAS OVER. 



























































































































































































































































































































































WARSHIPS 


31 


Virginia. Though the Northern wooden 
ships fired cannon ball after cannon ball, 
they did not harm her. One after an¬ 
other they were damaged or sunk by her 
fire. 

Then the Monitor came on the scene. 
She ran up close to the Merrimac with 
her guns firing as fast as they could be 
loaded. The two ironclads hammered 
away at each other with everything they 
had. 

Neither ship won. But it was one of 
the most important naval battles in his¬ 
tory. For it proved to all the world that 
the age of wooden fighting ships was 
over. Only an iron ship could stand up 
to another iron ship in battle. The 
United States had ironclads, so other 
countries also built them. A new age 
for warships began. 

Today all fighting ships are made of 
metal. 


32 CHILDREN’S SCIENCE SERIES 


SHIPS IN ARMOR 

One navy makes a big gun. Another 
navy makes a stronger ship to stand up 
to that gun. The first navy makes a 
bigger gun. The other navy does the 
same thing, and they both make stronger 
ships. That’s the history of navies. The 
race has been going on for a long time. 

As ships began to wear iron, cannon 
balls were no longer so dangerous as 
they had been. Men worked to make 
guns that would shoot better, and would 
shoot something that would break the 
iron. They made shells. Cannon balls 
were solid iron balls. Shells are pointed 
at one end and carry gunpowder inside. 
They are shot from cannon, and are made 
so as to explode when they hit a ship or 
other target. Often they go right through 
a ship’s armor and burst inside, tearing 
great holes in the ship. 

With the use of shells instead of cannon 


WARSHIPS 


33 


balls, armor had to be improved so that 
exploding shells could not do so much 
damage. 

At first solid iron armor plate was 
placed on oak sides, which were usually 
26 inches thick. Then it was discovered 
that solid iron was not so strong as thin 
iron plates placed one upon the other 
and fastened together. 

Later iron was replaced by steel. 
Special kinds of steel are made for war¬ 
ships. The steel used in warships today 
is very hard to crack, for it is twice as 
tough as the iron used fifty years ago. 

BATTLESHIPS AND CRUISERS 

The greatest among warships today is 
the battleship. It carries the thickest 
armor and weighs the most of all kinds 
of warships. 

Let us take a look at the Colorado of 
the U. S. Navy. It will remind us how 
much warships have improved since the 



VIRGINIA , THE SISTER SHIP OF THE COLORADO. 




















































































WARSHIPS 


35 


Romans sailed the Mediterranean in 
their wooden galleys. 

The Colorado is 624 feet long, more 
than twice as long as a football field. 
It is 97 feet wide. That’s a little more 
than the distance between bases on 
a baseball diamond. It weighs close to 
33,000 tons. Its sides are protected by 
steel plates 18 inches thick. Even the 
decks and turrets are covered with 
armor. It cost 25 million dollars, and 
took four years to build! 

The Colorado is run by four electric 
motors so powerful that it can move over 
the sea as fast as 24 miles an hour. 
Electric motors are used because they 
make it possible to change the direction 
of the ship’s movement more easily at 
full speed. This helps the ship to escape 
torpedoes. 

The speed of ships is always measured 
in sea miles, which are a little longer than 
land miles. 


36 CHILDREN’S SCIENCE SERIES 

It takes a crew of about 1,425 men to 
run the Colorado. That’s as many men 
as it would take to fill a theatre. The 
ship is so large that there are rooms for 
its entire crew. There are kitchens, too, 
and dining rooms. Besides that, it has 
a hospital, a post office, a library, a laun¬ 
dry, a barber shop and a motion picture 
theatre. The battleship is really a 
small floating town of 1,425 men. 

But this floating town is not like land 
towns. It has only one business. That 
is to protect its country, and to fight if 
necessary. 

The Colorado has 24 guns. Eight of 
the guns fire shells 16 inches wide. A 
shell that size weighs about 2,000 pounds 
— as much as a ton of coal. Yet the 
big gun can send this heavy shell 20 
miles through the air. 

These 16-inch guns are placed in four 
gun turrets. There are two turrets in 
the front of the ship, and two in the back. 
One turret of each pair is placed above 


WARSHIPS 


37 


and behind the other, so the guns of both 
can fire at once. 

Each turret has two guns, and can be 
moved in a half circle. So the guns 
cover the water in all directions. Each 
big gun can be fired twice in a minute. 

The rest of the guns on the Colorado 
are smaller. There are twelve 5-inch 
guns, and four anti-aircraft guns, which 
can be pointed up in the air for use 
against enemy planes. 

A warship very much like the battle¬ 
ship is the heavy cruiser. It has lighter 
armor, and somewhat smaller guns, but 
is much faster. It can reach a speed of 
32 miles an hour. Its heaviest guns are 
8-inch guns. 

There are light cruisers, too. The light 
cruiser is a little faster but wears lighter 
armor than the heavy cruiser. Both are 
used much as the old frigates and sloops 
of war were used. 

Because the cruisers are so fast, they 
can bring their guns up to any part of a 



THIS IS THE BROOKLYN, A LIGHT CRUISER OF THE UNITED 

STATES NAVY. 




























WARSHIPS 


39 


battle line much more quickly than the 
battleships. They can move quickly 
away out of range of the bigger guns 
of the enemy battleships. They cannot 
afford to get into a long duel with the 
battleships. For a good shot or two from 
the battleship’s big guns would pierce 
their lighter armor and sink them. 

SUBMARINES AND DESTROYERS 

The submarine is the slyest of all 
warships. It can travel under water and 
so hide from the enemy. It can creep 
up behind a big ship without being seen, 
release a torpedo, and then slip away 
under water. 

Those of us who have seen pictures of 
a submarine know that it is shaped some¬ 
what like a thick, fat cigar. On top, in 
the center, is a small tower, called the 
conning tower. This is where the men 
enter and leave the submarine. 

A large new submarine today is over 
400 feet long. If it were placed on a 


40 CHILDREN'S SCIENCE SERIES 

football field, it would extend 50 feet 
beyond the goal posts at each end of the 
field. It may weigh 3,500 tons. Some 
submarines can travel 15,000 miles with¬ 
out having to get more fuel. This is as 
much as crossing the Atlantic Ocean 
four times. They can stay under water 
for almost two and a half days. They 
can dive safely to a depth of 400 feet, and 



THIS UNITED STATES SUBMARINE, THE PORPOISE , IS ONE OF 
THE NEWEST OF THESE DEADLY UNDERWATER SHIPS. 



WARSHIPS 


41 


travel underwater at 10 or 12 miles an 
hour. But they can also travel on top of 
the water, at 24 miles an hour. 

When the submarine is traveling on 
the surface of the water, it is moved by 
Diesel oil engines. But once below the 
surface, it must use an electric motor. 
That is because the Diesel engines must 
have air to run. The electric engine 
does not need air. 

The submarine dives by letting water 
into tanks. As these tanks fill up, the 
submarine becomes heavier and sinks. 
When it wants to rise, the water is 
pumped out of the tanks. This makes 
the submarine lighter, and it floats up¬ 
ward. 

We might think that the crew of a 
submarine underwater could not see an 
enemy ship. But they have something 
which permits them to see the surface 
of the water in all directions. This is a 
periscope. 


42 CHILDREN’S SCIENCE SERIES 


The periscope is a long tube that sticks 
out above the water from the conning 
tower. Inside the tube are mirrors, ar¬ 
ranged in such a way that the men in 
the boat can see the surface of the water. 
The periscope can be turned in any direc¬ 
tion. Looking through it from the sub¬ 
marine, an observer can see what is 
going on above water. 

The submarine carries 6-inch guns, or 
larger. But its most deadly weapon is 
the torpedo. 

The torpedo is a long metal shell, 
shaped much like a cigar. It is shot by 
air from a large tube in the submarine, 
called a torpedo tube. One large sub¬ 
marine has ten or more of these tubes. 

A small motor inside turns a propeller 
on the end of the torpedo, and so the 
torpedo moves through the water. It 
carries powder which explodes when the 
enemy ship is hit, making a large hole. 
A torpedo has even been known to blow 
up very large ships. 


WARSHIPS 


43 


Submarines sank a great many ships 
during the World War. But many of 
them were sunk, too. One kind of war¬ 
ship that did good work against the 
submarine was the destroyer. 

The destroyer carries no armor. It 
weighs less than one-third what a big 
submarine weighs. It has only 4-inch 
or 5-inch guns. But submarines have 
good reason to fear it. For though its 
guns are small, they are large enough 
to sink a submarine. And, like sub¬ 
marines, the destroyer carries torpedoes. 
If the guns are not able to destroy the 
enemy, a deadly torpedo may be released 
from its tube. 

But the destroyer is dangerous mostly 
because of its speed. The submarine is 
at its mercy. The submarine cannot es¬ 
cape the destroyer, for if it stays on the 
surface, the destroyer can outrun it. 
And if it goes underwater, the destroyer 
has another way of attacking. It uses a 
depth charge. 



DESTROYERS LIKE THE DUNLAP OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY 
ARE DANGEROUS ENEMIES OF THE SUBMARINE. 






WARSHIPS 


45 


A depth charge looks very much like 
a large barrel. But it is a huge bomb. 
It is either rolled into the water over the 
side of a ship, or shot from a special 
kind of gun. And it is fixed in such a 
way that it will explode when it reaches 
a certain depth. The depth charge does 
not have to hit the submarine to sink it. 
For the force of the explosion in the water 
nearby will crush the submarine. Water 
will rush in and the submarine will sink. 

The destroyer is not the only warship 
that uses depth charges, of course. Most 
warships carry them in case they should 
meet a submarine. 

Destroyers are used also to help battle 
fleets. They can attack under cover of 
smoke screens or of darkness. They pro¬ 
tect the main fleet against submarines. 
And they are often sent ahead to scout 
the sea and make certain that the fleet 
can move ahead safely. 


46 CHILDREN’S SCIENCE SERIES 


AIRCRAFT CARRIERS 
The latest of all ships used for war is 
the aircraft carrier. This is bigger even 
than a battleship. The whole ship is 
covered by a large flat roof, or deck. 
Here airplanes have space to take off 
and land. There may be 75 planes on 
a large carrier. These are kept in a 
space under the flying deck. They are 
raised from below by big elevators. 

Sometimes the planes just take off 
from the flying deck as they would from 
a landing field. But they may be shot 
into the air by a machine, as a stone is 
shot from a slingshot. Seaplanes are 
lowered into the water by a very long 
steel arm called a crane. Then the 
planes fly off to scout for enemy ships, 
or even bomb them. 

The aircraft carrier has small guns to 
protect itself and the planes it carries, 
but it is not really a fighting ship. It 


WARSHIPS 47 



THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER IS A FLOATING GARAGE FOR AIRPLANES. 


is an auxiliary ship, a ship which helps 
the Navy. There are many other smaller 
auxiliary ships. These are not so excit¬ 
ing as the big fighting ships, but they 
are just as important. 










48 CHILDREN’S SCIENCE SERIES 


There are ships which carry food to 
the warships. There are ammunition 
ships, which supply them with shells or 
torpedoes, — and oil ships, which carry 
fuel for the warships’ engines. There 
are hospital ships, which care for sick 
or wounded men. There are transport 
ships, which carry sailors or soldiers to 
the places where they are needed. There 
are repair ships. 

Quite often during a war a fighting 
ship cannot get back to its own country. 
But somewhere in the ocean, at a secret 
meeting place, an auxiliary ship can find 
it and give it the supplies to go on fight¬ 
ing. The Navy could not get along with¬ 
out these faithful servants. 

Warships have played an important 
part in the history of ship building. 
Many times men learned useful things 
about building as they worked to make 
better fighting ships. Then the things 
they learned were used to make other 
ships better also. 







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